Thirumalai Murugan from Hilton Fujairah Resort took the title of Executive Chef of the Year sponsored by Nestle last night, at the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2012 presented by Du.

Presented by Nestle’s country business manager Leonid Vereshchagin, the award was given to recognise Murugan’s innovative ideas, such as sending complimentary deserts through room-service with hand-written notes from the chef – an idea which has been picked up by Hilton hotels in Mexico, LA and Durban.

Judges at the 1920s-themed event said: “With limited resources compared to some of the other hotels, chef Murugan had excelled through his sheer resourcefulness and skills as a leader.”

Murugan said: “I feel great – I’ve been in this industry for 16 years. I’ve been eagerly looking forward to winning this award which recognises our strong team. Thanks to them I've been able to achieve this.

"Nomally when you think of Hilton Fujairah, it’s a smaller property. With a smaller property you have more challenges in terms of getting noticed. But for me, being in a smaller property is great. I can do more – I can expose myself more."

Atlantis The Palm’s Mark Patten was also highly commended in the category, and recognised for the opening of two new outlets to the resort in the past 12 months.

 

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